As you may already know, artificial intelligence has been the talking point for the last ten months due to Chat GPT. Both for good and bad reasons. Many billionaires around the world are encouraging companies to put AI on hold for the time being as the world “isn’t ready for AI”.
Currently, AI is being used to improve people’s day-to-day tasks at work. For example, AI is used for content creation as well as designing creative artwork for ads. However, that isn’t as good as it sounds as they are also being used to generate scams.
Scammers are always ahead of the game. They always try to find a new method that scams people for their money. Phishing scams are one of those scams which have been around for many years, scamming people for thousands of dollars. Now, they are using AI to scam people of their riches and it seems to be working.
Social media is a common platform for people to be scammed. The reason why is that it is so easy to do so. Now, AI is being used to create advertisements which impersonate some of the most famous celebrities. Some of those celebrities that have been impersonated include Gina D’Acampo (Chef), Bear Grylls (Adventurer) and Ian Wright (Former Professional Football player). With these advertisements, it is difficult to differentiate them from the real person.
There is no doubt that AI has made the world a better place in some aspects. Plus, it has helped companies make smarter business decisions financially. Nevertheless, there are always positives and negatives with things on trend, especially with AI. Let’s take a look at how scammers are misusing AI to trick people into buying fake products and cryptocurrency so they gain money.
How Are Scammers Using AI To Create Misleading Advertisements?
There is no doubt that cybercriminals are very intellectual people. However, their scams have now been taken to another level by using AI to create fake advertisements of celebrities. To do this, they will promote a social media post which would include AI-generated content of celebrities.
These scams are sneakily placed in random websites all over the world so they can’t easily be recognised as a scam. They have also been spotted on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. Facebook and Twitter are now taking action to lock down their security and reduce the risks of these scams.
Due to the use of celebrities, they are managing to trick social media users into thinking these scams are legitimate because they are using the face of celebrities. The problem with these is they are hard to spot and trick people into false products and services.
A common scamming technique that they are using is selling health products. They will also use artificial intelligence to create video footage of the AI-generated celebrity. They will also use the voices of these celebrities, making it almost impossible to identify that the advert is legitimate. Plus, these advertisements are usually catfishing a celebrity’s account.
Martin Lewis was one of the most recent to be impersonated by an AI scam. This then led to him warning people about the scam and that people must remain vigilant when it comes to content like this.
How Do You Spot An AI-Generated Scam?
Despite how realistic these scams are, there are ways in which you can identify these as scams. The first thing you should do is not believe everything you see online, especially when it involves buying items online. Although it sounds like paranoia, you must question everything you read.
Another thing that you should do when you see these advertisements is to look for signals that it is fake. You have to carefully watch these videos to see if there are any quality slip-ups such as a change in video quality. Other things to look out for are poor lighting or a change of lighting throughout the video. The final thing to check is to see if they are blinking or if the blinking looks unnatural. These videos are very real but they have errors which is why you should carefully watch them.
Audio quality isn’t always great with these types of videos either due to them being AI-generated. They could be using unnatural language and the sentences could sound like they are now from the same conversation.
Usually, these AI-generated videos and images promote products or services. Before you purchase anything or enter your details into a website, make sure you research the company. Check Trustpilot for a brand to see other people’s reviews.
If you ever see an advertisement for a celebrity, search on Google to see if the celebrity used it on other websites for the same product. Furthermore, you may see reports of celebrities saying that the advertisement is a scam and you shouldn’t buy products from them.
What Can You Do If You Spot A Celebrity AI-Generated Scam
If you believe you have been targeted by an AI-generated scam, the first thing you should do is report the advert. You can either report the ad itself or, you can report the account which is promoting the advert.
If you have fallen for one of these scams then you don’t need to worry. All you need to do is contact your credit card company to see if you can retrieve your money back. Furthermore, you should always pay with PayPal as these have a better chance of protecting you from these scams.
To Conclude
There are many different types of scams you may already be aware of. However, AI is the new scam on the block and they are easy to fall for. They look like real celebrities and they also sound like them as well.
These celebrity AI-generated scams are very realistic and are hard to spot that they are a scam. If you are not on the internet a lot, it is easy to fall for these scams if you are unaware of them. Nonetheless, they are easy to spot once you know what to look for. If you follow our guide that was mentioned earlier, you will soon see the flaws of these AI-generated scams. Also, remember to do your research before you buy into these scams.
AI-generated scams like this would try to get you into buying cryptocurrency, products or even services. NFT scams are becoming more common and scammers are using AI-generated content to trick people into buying these products.